And It Was Never Seen Again
by littleme36
Summary: The tale of young Harry's first flight - not legal, not supervised and not entirely successful. Not bad though, for a first-timer on a slightly-stolen broom. Oneshot. Part of my 'Scourge of Knockturn Alley' AU but can be read on its own.


**A/N:**  
The story of Harry's first flight on a broom which is vaguely referenced in Chapter 8 of my story 'Harry Potter: Scourge of Knockturn Alley.' Once I'd put the idea on (digital) paper, it just begged to be written out in full!  
Please let me know what you think!

* * *

Harry wandered down Knockturn Alley, peering at the milling shoppers until he spotted a likely target. Slipping his hand into hers, he stood innocently for a moment until he felt the woman take notice. Then, looking up, he widened his eyes in shock.

"Oh, sorry!" He said guilelessly, "you're not my Mummy!"

And he slipped his fingers out of hers, disappearing back into the crowd, taking the woman's diamond ring along with him.

* * *

In a grimy back alley behind a grimier pub, a man landed on a broom. Well, to describe him as a man is perhaps a little premature, for Kane Bansley was barely out of Hogwarts. He was also quite possibly about as naive as a first year, for this boy thought it would be safe to leave his broom out on the street in Knockturn Alley.

His logic, flawed as it may have been, was that since it was a very old and battered broom no-one could possibly want to steal it.

Kane Bansley never saw that broom again.

Surprisingly, that was not actually the intention of the young miscreant into who's hands the broom fell. No, he only intended to borrow the broom for a half hour or so to get his first taste of flying.

* * *

Harry had had a bad day out on the streets today, few people seemed to be presenting their usual easy targets, and he had already gone through several near misses and 2 chases. His only real success was the small-ish diamond ring that nestled deep within his pocket. His legs ached, and he was about ready to call it a day.

The only people who normally frequented the back alley where he found the broom were the drunks from the pub. He knew this because he had had to fetch his Dad from there more than once. More times than he could count, actually. If he woke up in the morning and his Dad wasn't in bed, Harry was never worried. It was only if he couldn't find him in the alley either that he worried, and even then Mundungus was usually home by noon, grumbling about the extortionate prices for actually sleeping at a brothel.

No-one could ever claim that the 8 year old Harry was naive.

So, little Harry went to the alley looking for easy marks before he returned home. What he found was, in his opinion, much better.

A muggle wouldn't have looked twice at the slightly ratty old broom leaning up against the wall by the back door of the pub. But Harry was a wizarding boy who had been pouring over broom catalogues since before he could read, and he immediately recognised the broom as a Nimbus 100. Old, and obviously not well cared for, but still a reasonable broomstick.

Poor Kane Banesley never stood a chance.

If Harry felt a flash of guilt as his hands closed around the broomstick, he quenched it with the promise that he would return the broom later, and the owner would never even know it had been gone.

He started cautiously, moving a few alleys over before placing the broom on the floor and loudly pronouncing 'up!' He was delighted when the broomstick sprang immediately into his waiting hand. He clambered on board and moved his hands into what he thought was the correct grip (according to 'Broomsticks 101,' stolen from the shopping bag of a nervous looking girl in Diagon Alley a few years before).

Kicking off gently he hovered for a moment, then moved slowly up and down the alley for a few minutes. However, the initial thrill quickly wore off, and Harry decided to move on to something a little more exciting.

For an unsupervised eight year old boy, 'a little more exciting' naturally means 'about the most foolhardy thing you can think of,' so within moments young Harry was swooping over the rooftops of Knockturn Alley, weaving between chimneys, turning wildly around tight corners and even chancing the occasional loop the loop.

It just so happened that also flying above the rooftops of Knockturn Alley was an auror. An off-duty auror, but an auror nonetheless. Seeing the small boy whirling around the rooftops unaccompanied, she called out to him, asking where his parents were. When the little boy immediately took off like a startled rabbit she smelt a rat and followed swiftly after him.

Their chase was about as exciting as a chase between two unexperienced fliers can get. They dodged around chimneys and over rooftops at as fast a speed as either of them could manage, darting down into alleys and then up again. The auror was startled and impressed by the boys ability on a broom given his youth - she would have been even more so had she known it was his first time - clearly he was a natural flier, she thought.

Eventually after the boy executed a hair-raisingly tight hairpin turn the auror gave up. She wasn't exactly loosing ground on the boy, but neither was she gaining. Pulling up on the handle of he broom she headed for home.

Had she only bothered to negotiate the turn herself she would have found a very sheepish Harry sat on the floor of the alley nursing several shallow scrapes and bruises and a deep wound in his pride.

Although he had successfully made the turn, Harry had then found himself face to face with a large pile of rubbish - the worst smelling rubbish he had ever had the misfortune to encounter, and that was saying something. In a desperate attempt to avoid the foul-smelling waste, Harry lost control of the broom and went crashing hard into a wall. He wasn't far off the ground, so his own injuries were limited. The brunt of the damage had gone to the broom - it had snapped in two and was lying on he ground at his feet.

For all his bravado, Harry was still only eight, and his lower lip trembled as he gradually lost the fight against tears. Sniffing and swiping at his eyes with a grubby sleeve, he gathered up the pieces of the broom and fed them through the bars over a drain so that no-one would find them. Then, he went in search of his Daddy for a hug and some sympathy for his injuries.

When the aforementioned Mr Banesley returned to collect his broom, he was sorely disappointed, for there was no sign of it. Perhaps he learnt something that day.

However, clearly he did not learn enough, for had he only bothered to look more carefully he would have found a small but very valuable diamond ring left for him by a guilty young thief.

This ring was eventually spotted by an enterprising magpie, who used the sparkly trinket to line his nest. A few months later the nest was abandoned and the ring fell to the ground to be slowly swallowed by the earth.

Mrs Malfoy never saw that ring again.


End file.
